Glidden woman relives childhood in new book

Marlene Neubauer, a native of Glidden, wrote a book about her days growing up on the farm. She tells tales of spending time with her grandmother, making jelly the hard way and shucking corn to make popcorn.

Marlene Neubauer grew up in a farm outside of Glidden starting in the late 1930s.

She milked cows and hunted through the chicken coop for eggs.

Her mother taught her how to make jelly by picking, cleaning and pealing grapes herself.

When the family wanted popcorn, Marlene went out to the barn and shucked husks of dried corn to pop in bacon grease.

Marlene recently published a book of these childhood memories called "Beyond the Backyard." Some of the stories she tells through poems, which she dedicates to her family and her grandmother. She writes about blizzards, her school house and Christmas.

Neubauer wrote about how she spent hours and hours outside with nothing but her imagination. No computers, cellphones or video games to be seen nor heard.

On weekends her family would travel into Glidden and she'd buy a soda for a nickel. A rare treat.

Marlene recalls going to her first drive-in movie in the 1940s. She thinks it starred John Wayne. The movie strip at the drive-in would sometimes break in half before the movie finished, and the theater sometimes lost sound, but she said that didn't matter.

It was about having fun with friends. An activity the whole community could do.

She remembers polishing her shoes to go to school and making dresses by hand.

In a letter to the Daily Times Herald, Neubauer, who is now 75 and lives in Glidden, said she spent many hours with paper and pen in hand during 2012, writing the book.

The book was published in December and is the third Neubauer has written. She has also published "Poems Past and Present" and "Homespun Happiness."

Her books are on sale at Good News Book and Gift Store, 515 N. Adams St., in Westgate Mall in Carroll.